


In A Bind

by WildWolf25



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Advice, Gen, Little bit of angst, Nonbinary Character, Trans Character, improper use of a binder, platonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 12:36:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10944627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WildWolf25/pseuds/WildWolf25
Summary: "Keith could feel the tightness in his chest, but he chose to push past it and power on anyway.  He was getting caught out of breath more often, and it was fogging up his mind and making his reaction time slower.  No… he was tougher than this, he could deal with it.  He just had to get stronger, and that meant pushing forward..."When Keith's reckless habits land him in a bit of trouble, he reaches out to the one person he can trust to both help him and keep his secret.





	In A Bind

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Friends, don't exercise and bind. Don't do what Keith does in this. Bind safely!

Keith could feel the tightness in his chest, but he chose to push past it and power on anyway.  He was getting caught out of breath more often, and it was fogging up his mind and making his reaction time slower.  No… he was tougher than this, he could deal with it.  He just had to get stronger, and that meant pushing forward.  

When the training dummy burst into pieces at the hands of a joint attack between him and Shiro, Keith would have let out a relieved sigh if he wasn’t so busy trying to catch his breath.  Shiro looked over at him while the next level started up.  

“You okay?”  He asked.  “We can take a break, if you want to.”

“I don’t want to.”  Keith straightened up, feeling the strain in his chest and back.  His arms were beginning to feel numb.  

“Or, if you need to.”  Shiro said.

“I don’t need to.”  Keith said firmly, and it would have sounded a lot better if he wasn’t so winded.  He readjusted his grip on his bayard, fingers feeling heavy and slow.  

Shiro gave him a long look before starting up the next level.  Keith struggled to get his breathing under control; he couldn’t afford to get light-headed now.  The training dummy materialized before them and took up a fighting stance, Shiro and Keith following suit.  

It lunged at them, swinging its polearm.  Shiro quickly sidestepped it, but Keith was too slow.  He brought his sword up to block the hit and felt the impact reverberate through his entire body, shocking through his arms before leaving them numb.  He grimaced and shoved the training dummy away from him, falling back a bit while Shiro landed a few quick kicks and slashes of his glowing hand.  

Keith bent forward and rested his hands on his knees, gasping for breath.  Everything hurt, he felt like he was being stabbed and crushed and frozen and burnt all at the same time.  He couldn’t think, he couldn’t breathe…

“Keith!  Look out!”  Shiro’s voice ripped the layers of gauze surrounding his mind and he looked up just in time to see the training dummy barrelling toward him, swinging its polearm.  His reflexes were too slow and he didn’t manage to block it in time, and the weapon connected with his chest, sending him flying backwards where he landed on the ground with a hard  _ thud _ .

Keith couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t see, he couldn’t feel his arms.  All he could feel was that his chest was on fire, being split open and ripped out.  He was trapped and he couldn’t even move, like the mass of everything in the universe was pressing down on his chest and he realized dimly that he was stupid, he was so incredibly stupid...

“--ith!  Keith!  Can you hear me?”  Shiro’s voice sounded like it was coming from very far away, but someone was maneuvering him to sit upright and oh god that was worse, he couldn’t breathe and his chest was on fire…

“Pidge… get Pidge…”  He managed to gasp out.

“Are you--?”  

“ _ Now _ !”  

Shiro looked conflicted for a moment before sprinting out of the training room.  Keith sat hunched over on the floor, his elbows resting on his knees and his head in his hands, sucking in gulps of air even though it just made the fire burning in his chest hotter.  His back was aching like someone was pressing on it with all their might and his ribs felt like they had splintered into a million pieces and each of them was poking holes into his lungs, robbing him of every breath he tried to steal.  His head was full of cotton and his vision was starting to get spotty, green and purple hazy dots creeping in from the edges.  He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe…

The door to the training deck burst open and Pidge came sprinting in, Shiro behind them and Lance and Hunk following quickly.  

Pidge skidded to a halt next to him and dropped to their knees.  “Keith, what’s--”

“Can’t breathe…” Keith gasped out.  “Chest… bi--… help,  _ please _ ....”

Pidge’s brow furrowed for a moment, then their eyes widened in shock.  They turned to the rest of the paladins, who were all hovering uncertainly off to the side.  “Everyone get out.”

“But--”

“Out,  _ now _ !”  Pidge shouted, their voice hard.  

Shiro cast a worried look between Pidge and Keith, who was still hunched over on the floor and gasping for breath, then he ushered the other two out of the room.

“What the hell, what’s going--?”  Lance protested, but Shiro pushed him towards the door.  

“I don’t know, but we should listen to them.”  Shiro told him.  They looked back at the two paladins in the training room.  Pidge had their hand on Keith’s shoulder and looked like they were helping him sit up.

“Okay, let’s get this off--” Pidge’s quiet words were cut off by the automatic door closing with a  _ whoosh _ .  

~~~

“Binder?”  Pidge asked quietly, as soon as the others were out of earshot.  Keith nodded wordlessly.  Pidge put a hand on his shoulder and the other on his back, gently prodding.  “Can you sit up straight?”

“Hurts…”

“I know,” Pidge glanced over their shoulder and saw that Shiro had ushered the other two out the door and that it was closing.  “Okay, let’s get this off of you.”  Pidge tugged up the hem of his black v-neck to see what they were working with.  Keith was wearing a black zip-up binder, they noticed with a frown.  Definitely not the safest, and certainly not acceptable to wear while training, but they would save the lecture for later.  They unzipped the front and quickly retracted their hands, letting his shirt fall back into place.  

Immediately, Keith started to breathe easier.  He was still in pain, and a lot of it, but he didn’t feel like he was dying anymore.  He sucked in a deep breath and grimaced, doubling over when pain suddenly flared sharply in his ribs.

“Sit up straight,” Pidge told him, maneuvering his shoulders until he was upright again.  “Breathe from down here.”  They tapped his abdomen with a hand.  

“Can’t…”

“Yes you can.”  Pidge said firmly.  “In and out, from down here.  Come on, Keith, you can do it.”

Keith tried to visualize breathing from his stomach rather than his chest.  It worked, and the pain lessened just enough that his vision stopped swimming.  He had no idea how long he sat there, one of Pidge’s hands pressed to his abdomen and the other on his back to keep him upright, trying to get his breathing under control.  It could have been a few minutes, or hours, or years, everything seemed foggy and floaty and a little distant.  

Eventually, the pain lessened to a dull ache in his chest and back.  He let his head drop into his hands, feeling exhausted.  “I’m an idiot…”

“Yes, you are.”  Pidge said, not even bothering to sugarcoat it.  “Has this ever happened to you before?”

“No,”

“Then at least you’re not as much of an idiot as you could be.” Pidge rubbed his back.  “Keep sitting up straight.”  

“It hurts…”

“It’s going to hurt no matter what you do, but sitting up is going to be easier on your lungs.”  Pidge prodded him upright again.  They shifted onto their knees and scooted closer, wrapping one arm around his shoulders in a hug and carding the fingers of their other hand through his sweaty hair.  Keith buried his face in their neck and let them hold him, too tired to care.  At least they were helping to keep him upright.  

“We’ll get you into a healing pod to fix up any damage that happened to your ribs,” Pidge said quietly, scratching lightly at his scalp.  “But you have to promise me you won’t train in your binder again.”

“I don’t have anything else to wear.”  Keith explained.  “I don’t have a sports bra or anything, and even if I did, I couldn’t wear it; they would see, they would find out--” 

“I’ve got another sports bra you can use.”  Pidge told him.  

“But--” 

“Shh, no buts.”  Pidge said firmly.  “Train in your armor.  The suits contour themselves perfectly to fit your body, and the design prioritizes function over appearance so the chestplate is normal instead of curved.  No one will bat an eye if you work out in your armor.  It’s much safer, and no one will know.”  

“Really?”  Keith blinked in surprise.

“Yeah,” Pidge said.  “Remember when we first saw the armor in those tubes?  They were all the same size.  How do you think they were able to fit on my short body, or on Hunk, or Lance’s weirdly-triangular swimmer’s torso?”  

Keith chuckled.  “I guess you’re right.”   

“No ‘I guess’, I am right.”  Pidge said, only half-joking.  “And you’re not going to wear your binder when you train again?”

“I won’t.”

“You promise?”  

He sighed , only wincing a little at the pain.  “Yeah, I promise.”

“Good.”  Pidge rubbed his back.  “What do you want to tell the others?”  

Keith didn’t know.  He wondered if they had managed to figure it out.  He really hoped not.  “Not the truth.”  

“You know you can trust them, right?”  Pidge said.  “Like how you trusted me?”  

Keith swallowed hard.  He remembered how relieved he felt when Pidge announced that they were actually a girl, and when he overheard Shiro asking Pidge if they were being safe with their binding or if they needed anything.  When he found out Pidge wore a binder, he had wanted to tell them, but he had been too afraid to.  He had spent too long building up his defenses and making people see what he wanted them to see.  He had worked so hard to get where he was now, and he didn’t want to render all of that moot by telling someone the truth.  

“I don’t want them to see me any differently.”  He said finally.  

“They didn’t see me any differently.”  Pidge said.  Keith couldn’t argue with that.  Other than Lance’s initial freak-out, everything had gone back to normal.

“I’ll… I’ll think about it.”  Keith said, his voice quiet.  “But for now… I’ll just say I got the wind knocked out of me.  Wasn’t thinking straight.  No idea why I wanted you to help me.”  

Pidge chuckled.  “Alright.”  They brushed their fingers through his hair again.  “What are your pronouns?”

“He/him.”  

“Gotcha.  Just checking.”  Pidge patted his back.  “Okay, let’s get you to a healing pod.”  

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know if you enjoyed it! I also have a tumblr: wildwolf25.tumblr.com


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